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Google’s Deal to Buy Twitch Confirmed, According to New Report

The rumored deal that will see Google acquire game-streaming service Twitch has been confirmed, according to a GamesBeat report.

Variety reported back in May that YouTube–a subsidiary of Google–had reached a deal to acquire Twitch for $1 billion. (Microsoft was also rumored to have been interested.) The companies refused to comment on the matter at the time, and in lieu of any official word in the ensuing two months, there has been speculation about whether the deal had fallen apart.

GamesBeat’s report states the acquisition will indeed go through. However, the exact price, as well as when an official announcement will be made, remain uncertain. When contacted by GameSpot for confirmation, both Twitch and Google declined to comment.

This news comes just days after the end of this year’s International, the Dota 2 tournament (which was streamed through Twitch) that offered a record prize pool of more than $10 million. Twitch is the United States’ largest live-streaming website by far, according to a report released in April. The popularity of esports has risen dramatically in recent years; last year alone, more than 2.4 billion hours of esports content were viewed through services like Twitch.

Twitch allows streaming games to be viewed on computers, phones, tablets, and game consoles like the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 (both of which offer the ability to stream games right from the systems). Streaming functionality is not available on the Wii U at this point because Nintendo doesn’t see the value in it.

Streaming games is a prospect not entirely without controversy. There are those in the games industry who feel game makers are entitled to a portion of the revenue earned by those streaming games and publishing videos to sites like YouTube. Nintendo was, at one point, claiming ad revenue earned by YouTubers, but has since announced plans for an affiliate program that will split revenue with video creators.

If YouTube’s acquisition does go through, what would you like to see result from the two companies’ partnership? Let us know in the comments.

Chris Pereira is a freelance writer for GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @TheSmokingManX
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